This update focuses a lot on stability, but isn't without a few handy feature improvements. The most notable include:

The Dolphin file manager includes back and forward buttons, inline file renaming, and the ability to show metadata like ratings, tags, image size, file size, date, and more. You can also sort files by these metadata properties, which is awesome. It also includes a better Places panel, improved search, and better integration with the Terminal.

The Konsole terminal now includes the ability to change directory when you drag and drop a folder into the window, detach tabs by dragging them out of the window, and more.

Activities, the feature that helps you separate your work from your play, is now a bit more powerful, letting you link certain files to each workspace. You can also encrypt certain activities for more private work.

The KWin window manager now has better performance all around, as well as a few improvements here and there with certain effects like Wobby Windows.

There's a lot more happening in KDE 4.9 (like full annotations inside Okular, our favorite PDF viewer for Linux), so head on over to your updates panel and download the new version now. It should be available for most distributions already, but if it's not, give your repositories a few days to update (Kubuntu users can enable the backports repository to get it now). Hit the link below to read more about the new update.